1. There are towns
where the inhabitants, from dawn to eve, feast their eyes on the tricks
of innumerable conjurors. They are never tired of hearing
dissolute songs which cause much impurity to spring up in their souls,
and they are often called happy, because they neglect the cares of
business and trades useful to life, and pass the time, which is
assigned to them on this earth, in idleness and pleasure. They do
not know that a theatre full of impure sights is, for those who sit
there, a common school of vice; that these melodious and meretricious
songs insinuate themselves into men’s souls, and all who hear
them, eager to imitate the notes15201520κροῦμα,
properly “beat,” “stroke,” is used of the
blow of the plectrum on the string, and hence of the note
produced. of harpers and
pipers, are filled with filthiness.15211521cf. Plato, Rep. iii. 18, ad init.,
and his reference to the μαλθακὸς
αἰχμητής of
Homer, Il. xvii. 586. The same subject is treated of
the Laws ii. § 3 and 5 and vii. Some
others, who are wild after horses, think they are backing their horses
in their dreams; they harness their chariots, change their drivers, and
even in sleep are not free from the folly of the day.15221522cf.
Ar., Nub. 16, ὀνειροπολεὶ
ἵππους and 27, ὀνειροπολεῖ
καὶ
καθεύδων
ἱππικήν. So
Claudian, De vi. Cons. Hon. 1, sq.: Omnia quæ sensu volvuntur vota diurno, Pectore sopito reddit amica quies. Venator defessa toro cum membra reponit, Mens tamen ad sylvas et sua lustra redit. Judicibus lites, aurigæ somnia currus, Vanaque nocturnis meta cavetur equis. And shall we, whom the Lord, the great
worker of marvels, calls to the contemplation of His own works, tire of
looking at them, or be slow to hear the words of the Holy Spirit?
Shall we not rather stand around the vast and varied workshop of divine
creation and, carried back in mind to the times of old, shall we not
view all the order of creation? Heaven, poised like a dome, to
quote the words of the prophet;15231523Isa. xl. 22, LXX. earth, this
immense mass which rests upon itself; the air around it, of a soft
and fluid nature, a true and continual nourishment for all who
breathe it, of such tenuity that it yields and opens at the least
movement of the body, opposing no resistance to our motions, while,
in a moment, it streams back to its place, behind those who cleave
it; water, finally, that supplies drink for man, or may be designed
for our other needs, and the marvellous gathering together of it
into definite places which have been assigned to it: such is
the spectacle which the words which I have just read will show
you.

2. “And God said, Let the waters
under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry
land appear, and it was so.” And the water which was
under the heaven gathered together unto one place; “And God
called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters
called He seas.”15241524Gen. i. 9,
10. What trouble
you have given me in my previous discourses by asking me why the earth
was invisible, why all bodies are naturally endued with colour, and why
all colour comes under the sense of sight. And, perhaps, my
reason did not appear sufficient to you, when I said that the earth,
without being naturally invisible, was so to us, because of the mass of
water that entirely covered it. Hear then how Scripture explains
itself. “Let the waters be gathered together, and let the
dry land appear.” The veil is lifted and allows the earth,
hitherto invisible, to be seen. Perhaps you will ask me new
questions. And first, is it not a law of nature that water flows
downwards? Why, then, does Scripture refer this to the fiat of
the Creator? As long as water is spread over a level surface, it
does not flow; it is immovable. But when it finds any slope,
immediately the foremost portion falls, then the one that follows takes
its place, and that one is itself replaced by a third. Thus
incessantly they flow, pressing the one on the other, and the rapidity
of their course is in proportion to the mass of water that is being
carried, and the declivity down which it is borne. If such is the
nature of water, it was supererogatory to command it to gather into one
place. It was bound, on account of its natural instability, to
fall into the most hollow part of the earth and not to stop until the
levelling of its surface. We see how there is nothing so level as
the surface of water. Besides, they add, how did the waters
receive an order to gather into one place, when we see several seas,
separated from each other by the greatest distances? To the first
question I reply: Since God’s command, you know perfectly
well the motion of water; you know that it is unsteady and unstable and
falls naturally over declivities and into hollow places. But what
was its nature before this command made it take its course? You
do not know yourself, and you have heard from no eye-witness.
Think, in reality, that a word of God makes the nature, and that this
order is for the creature a direction for its future course.
There was only one creation of day and night, and since that moment
they have incessantly succeeded each other and divided time into equal
parts.

3. “Let the waters be gathered
to73gether.” It was
ordered that it should be the natural property of water to flow,
and in obedience to this order, the waters are never weary in
their course. In speaking thus, I have only in view the
flowing property of waters. Some flow of their own accord
like springs and rivers, others are collected and
stationary. But I speak now of flowing waters.
“Let the waters be gathered together unto one
place.” Have you never thought, when standing near a
spring which is sending forth water abundantly, Who makes this
water spring from the bowels of the earth? Who forced it
up? Where are the store-houses which send it forth?
To what place is it hastening? How is it that it is never
exhausted here, and never overflows there? All this comes
from that first command; it was for the waters a signal for their
course.

In all the story of the waters remember this first
order, “let the waters be gathered together.” To take
their assigned places they were obliged to flow, and, once arrived
there, to remain in their place and not to go farther. Thus in
the language of Ecclesiastes, “All the waters run into the sea;
yet the sea is not full.”15251525Eccl. i. 6,
7.
Waters flow in virtue of God’s order, and the sea is enclosed
in limits according to this first law, “Let the waters be
gathered together unto one place.” For fear the water
should spread beyond its bed, and in its successive invasions cover
one by one all countries, and end by flooding the whole earth, it
received the order to gather unto one place. Thus we often see
the furious sea raising mighty waves to the heaven, and, when once
it has touched the shore, break its impetuosity in foam and
retire. “Fear ye not me, saith the Lord.…which
have placed the sand for the bound of the sea.”15261526Jer. v. 22. A grain of sand, the weakest thing
possible, curbs the violence of the ocean. For what would
prevent the Red Sea from invading the whole of Egypt, which lies
lower, and uniting itself to the other sea which bathes its shores,
were it not fettered by the fiat of the Creator? And if I say
that Egypt is lower than the Red Sea, it is because experience has
convinced us of it every time that an attempt has been made to join
the sea of Egypt15271527i.e.
the Mediterranean. to the Indian
Ocean, of which the Red Sea is a part.15281528Geminum
mare…quod Rubrum dixere nostri…in duos dividitur
sinus. Is qui ab oriente Persicus est…altero sinu
Arabico nominato. Plin. vi. 28. Thus we have renounced this
enterprise, as also have the Egyptian Sesostris, who conceived the
idea, and Darius the Mede who afterwards wished to carry it
out.15291529 This
illustration is taken from the work on which Basil has been so
largely dependent, the Meterology of Aristotle (i. 14,
548). Pliny (vi. 33) writes: “Daneos
Portus, ex quo navigabilem alveum perducere in Nilum, qua parte ad
Delta dictum decurrit lxii. mill. D. Pass. intervallo, quod inter
flumen et Rubrum mare inter est, primus omnium Sesostris Ægypti
rex cogitavit; mox Darius Persarum; deinde Ptolemæus
sequens” (i.e. Ptolemy II.)
“…deterruit inundationis metus, excelsiore tribus
cubitis Rubro mari comperto quam terra Ægypti.”
Herodotus (ii. 158) attributes the canal to Necho. Strabo
(xvii. 804) says Darius, in supposing Egypt to lie lower than the
sea, was ψευδεῖ
πεισθείς.
The early canal, choked by sand, was reopened by Trajan, and choked
again. Amron, Omar’s general, again cleared it, but it
was blocked a.d. 767. The present
Suez Canal, opened in 1869, follows a new course.

I report this fact to make you understand the full force
of the command, “Let the waters be gathered unto one
place”; that is to say, let there be no other gathering, and,
once gathered, let them not disperse.

4. To say that the waters were gathered in
one place indicates that previously they were scattered in many
places. The mountains, intersected by deep ravines, accumulated
water in their valleys, when from every direction the waters betook
themselves to the one gathering place. What vast plains, in their
extent resembling wide seas, what valleys, what cavities hollowed in
many different ways, at that time full of water, must have been emptied
by the command of God! But we must not therefore say, that if the
water covered the face of the earth, all the basins which have since
received the sea were originally full. Where can the gathering of
the waters have come from if the basins were already full? These
basins, we reply, were only prepared at the moment when the water had
to unite in a single mass. At that time the sea which is beyond
Gadeira15301530i.e.
Cadiz, a corruption of Gadeira, which, like Geder and Gadara,
is connected with the Phœnician Gadir, an
enclosure. and the vast ocean,
so dreaded by navigators, which surrounds the isle of Britain and
western Spain, did not exist. But, all of a sudden, God created
this vast space, and the mass of waters flowed in.

Now if our explanation of the creation of the world may
appear contrary to experience, (because it is evident that all the
waters did not flow together in one place,) many answers may be made,
all obvious as soon as they are stated. Perhaps it is even
ridiculous to reply to such objections. Ought they to bring
forward in opposition ponds and accumulations of rain water, and think
that this is enough to upset our reasonings? Evidently the chief
and most complete affluence of the waters was what received the name of
gathering unto one place. For wells are also gathering places for
water, made by the hand of man to receive the moisture diffused in the
hollow of the earth. This name of gathering does not mean any
chance massing of water, but the greatest and most important one,
wherein the ele74ment is shewn
collected together. In the same way that fire, in spite of its
being divided into minute particles which are sufficient for our needs
here, is spread in a mass in the æther; in the same way that air,
in spite of a like minute division, has occupied the region round the
earth; so also water, in spite of the small amount spread abroad
everywhere, only forms one gathering together, that which separates the
whole element from the rest. Without doubt the lakes as well
those of the northern regions and those that are to be found in Greece,
in Macedonia, in Bithynia and in Palestine, are gatherings together of
waters; but here it means the greatest of all, that gathering the
extent of which equals that of the earth. The first contain a
great quantity of water; no one will deny this. Nevertheless no
one could reasonably give them the name of seas, not even if they are
like the great sea, charged with salt and sand. They instance for
example, the Lacus Asphaltitis in Judæa, and the Serbonian lake
which extends between Egypt and Palestine in the Arabian desert.
These are lakes, and there is only one sea, as those affirm who have
travelled round the earth. Although some authorities think the
Hyrcanian and Caspian Seas are enclosed in their own boundaries, if we
are to believe the geographers, they communicate with each other and
together discharge themselves into the Great Sea.15311531 Pliny
(vi. 15) shared a common error that the Caspian flowed into a
Northern Sea. The eastern part was known as the Hyrcanian, the
western as the Caspian. Strabo xi. 507, et
sq. It is thus that, according to their
account, the Red Sea and that beyond Gadeira only form one. Then
why did God call the different masses of water seas? This is the
reason; the waters flowed into one place, and their different
accumulations, that is to say, the gulfs that the earth embraced in her
folds, received from the Lord the name of seas: North Sea, South
Sea, Eastern Sea, and Western Sea. The seas have even their own
names, the Euxine, the Propontis, the Hellespont, the Ægean, the
Ionian, the Sardinian, the Sicilian, the Tyrrhene, and many other names
of which an exact enumeration would now be too long, and quite out of
place. See why God calls the gathering together of waters
seas. But let us return to the point from which the course of my
argument has diverted me.

5. And God said: “Let the
waters be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land
appear.” He did not say let the earth appear, so as not
to show itself again without form, mud-like, and in combination with
the water, nor yet endued with proper form and virtue. At the
same time, lest we should attribute the drying of the earth to the sun,
the Creator shows it to us dried before the creation of the sun.
Let us follow the thought Scripture gives us. Not only the water
which was covering the earth flowed off from it, but all that which had
filtered into its depths withdrew in obedience to the irresistible
order of the sovereign Master. And it was so. This is quite
enough to show that the Creator’s voice had effect:
however, in several editions, there is added “And the water which
was under the heavens gathered itself unto one place and the dry land
was seen;” words that other interpreters have not given, and
which do not appear conformable to Hebrew usage. In fact, after
the assertion, “and it was so,” it is superfluous to repeat
exactly the same thing. In accurate copies these words are marked
with an obelus,15321532 The
obelus (†) is used by Jerome to mark superfluous matter in the
lxx. cf. Jer. p. 494, in Canon Fremantle’s
Translation. The addition in question appears neither in the
Vulgate, nor in Aquila, or Symmachus, or Theodotion. Ambrose,
however, in Hexæm. iii. 5 approves of
it. which is the sign
of rejection.

“And God called the dry land earth; and
the gathering together of the waters called He
seas.”15331533Gen. i. 10. Why does
Scripture say above that the waters were gathered together unto one
place, and that the dry earth appeared? Why does it add here
the dry land appeared, and God gave it the name of earth? It
is that dryness is the property which appears to characterize the
nature of the subject, whilst the word earth is only its simple
name. Just as reason is the distinctive faculty of man, and
the word man serves to designate the being gifted with this faculty,
so dryness is the special and peculiar quality of the earth.
The element essentially dry receives therefore the name of earth, as
the animal who has a neigh for a characteristic cry is called a
horse. The other elements, like the earth, have received some
peculiar property which distinguishes them from the rest, and makes
them known for what they are. Thus water has cold for its
distinguishing property; air, moisture; fire, heat. But this
theory really applies only to the primitive elements of the
world. The elements which contribute to the formation of
bodies, and come under our senses, show us these qualities in
combination, and in the whole of nature our eyes and senses can find
nothing which is completely singular, simple and pure. Earth
is at the same time dry and cold; 75water, cold and moist; air, moist and warm;
fire, warm and dry. It is by the combination of their
qualities that the different elements can mingle. Thanks to a
common quality each of them mixes with a neighbouring element, and
this natural alliance attaches it to the contrary element. For
example, earth, which is at the same time dry and cold, finds in
cold a relationship which unites it to water, and by the means of
water unites itself to air. Water placed between the two,
appears to give each a hand, and, on account of its double quality,
allies itself to earth by cold and to air by moisture. Air, in
its turn, takes the middle place and plays the part of a mediator
between the inimical natures of water and fire, united to the first
by moisture, and to the second by heat. Finally fire, of a
nature at the same time warm and dry, is linked to air by warmth,
and by its dryness reunites itself to the earth. And from this
accord and from this mutual mixture of elements, results a circle
and an harmonious choir whence each of the elements deserves its
name. I have said this in order to explain why God has given
to the dry land the name of earth, without however calling the earth
dry. It is because dryness is not one of those qualities which
the earth acquired afterwards, but one of those which constituted
its essence from the beginning. Now that which causes a body
to exist, is naturally antecedent to its posterior qualities and has
a pre-eminence over them. It is then with reason that God
chose the most ancient characteristic of the earth whereby to
designate it.

6. “And God saw that it was
good.”15341534Gen. i. 10. Scripture
does not merely wish to say that a pleasing aspect of the sea presented
itself to God. It is not with eyes that the Creator views the
beauty of His works. He contemplates them in His ineffable
wisdom. A fair sight is the sea all bright in a settled calm;
fair too, when, ruffled by a light breeze of wind, its surface shows
tints of purple and azure,—when, instead of lashing with violence
the neighbouring shores, it seems to kiss them with peaceful
caresses. However, it is not in this that Scripture makes God
find the goodness and charm of the sea. Here it is the purpose of
the work which makes the goodness.

In the first place sea water is the source of all the
moisture of the earth. It filters through imperceptible conduits,
as is proved by the subterranean openings and caves whither its waves
penetrate; it is received in oblique and sinuous canals; then, driven
out by the wind, it rises to the surface of the earth, and breaks it,
having become drinkable and free from its bitterness by this long
percolation. Often, moved by the same cause, it springs even from
mines that it has crossed, deriving warmth from them, and rises
boiling, and bursts forth of a burning heat, as may be seen in islands
and on the sea coast; even inland in certain places, in the
neighbourhood of rivers, to compare little things with great, almost
the same phenomena occur. To what do these words tend? To
prove that the earth is all undermined with invisible conduits, where
the water travels everywhere underground from the sources of the
sea.

7. Thus, in the eyes of God, the sea is good,
because it makes the under current of moisture in the depths of the
earth. It is good again, because from all sides it receives the
rivers without exceeding its limits. It is good, because it is
the origin and source of the waters in the air. Warmed by the
rays of the sun, it escapes in vapour, is attracted into the high
regions of the air, and is there cooled on account of its rising high
above the refraction of the rays from the ground, and, the shade of the
clouds adding to this refrigeration, it is changed into rain and
fattens the earth. If people are incredulous, let them look at
caldrons on the fire, which, though full of water, are often left empty
because all the water is boiled and resolved into vapour.
Sailors, too, boil even sea water, collecting the vapour in sponges, to
quench their thirst in pressing need.

Finally the sea is good in the eyes of God, because it
girdles the isles, of which it forms at the same time the rampart and
the beauty, because it brings together the most distant parts of the
earth, and facilitates the inter-communication of mariners. By
this means it gives us the boon of general information, supplies the
merchant with his wealth, and easily provides for the necessities of
life, allowing the rich to export their superfluities, and blessing the
poor with the supply of what they lack.

But whence do I perceive the goodness of the Ocean, as
it appeared in the eyes of the Creator? If the Ocean is good and
worthy of praise before God, how much more beautiful is the assembly of
a Church like this, where the voices of men, of children, and of women,
arise in our prayers to God mingling and resounding like the waves
which beat upon the shore. This Church also enjoys a profound
calm, and malicious spirits cannot trouble it with the breath of
heresy. Deserve, then, the approbation of the Lord by
remain76ing faithful to such good
guidance, in our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power for ever
and ever. Amen.

1520κροῦμα,
properly “beat,” “stroke,” is used of the
blow of the plectrum on the string, and hence of the note
produced.

1521cf. Plato, Rep. iii. 18, ad init.,
and his reference to the μαλθακὸς
αἰχμητής of
Homer, Il. xvii. 586. The same subject is treated of
the Laws ii. § 3 and 5 and vii.

1530i.e.
Cadiz, a corruption of Gadeira, which, like Geder and Gadara,
is connected with the Phœnician Gadir, an
enclosure.

1531 Pliny
(vi. 15) shared a common error that the Caspian flowed into a
Northern Sea. The eastern part was known as the Hyrcanian, the
western as the Caspian. Strabo xi. 507, et
sq.

1532 The
obelus (†) is used by Jerome to mark superfluous matter in the
lxx. cf. Jer. p. 494, in Canon Fremantle’s
Translation. The addition in question appears neither in the
Vulgate, nor in Aquila, or Symmachus, or Theodotion. Ambrose,
however, in Hexæm. iii. 5 approves of
it.